A Day in the Life of a Working Dad – Part 1

Today’s post is courtesy of Andy Schlosberg, a full-time working dad of a toddler and infant twins.

Day in the Life of a Working Dad: My Typical Morning

3:30 a.m.

“Cole’s screaming!” For the life of me I still have no idea how my wife knows which twin is crying, but it’s my shift and those words mean I have to get out of bed with our five month old son who is not sleeping through the night yet. Sure enough, Cole is hungry. He’s a good little guy and once he sees that I am doing what he wants – prepping his bottle – he’ll give me a few minutes. After a feeding, burping, and diaper change, I put him back down.

4:00 a.m.
Now comes the decision moment. Laying sound asleep in the basinet next to Cole is his twin sister Claire. Do I wake her and feed her? Or, do I let her be with the hopes that this will finally be the night she sleeps all the way through? Today I am an optimist and decide to let her sleep. I crawl into bed, fire up the Kindle Paperwhite (I love this device!) and read until I can fall back to sleep.

4:30 a.m.
Well, you guessed it. Tonight is not the night that Claire sleeps through. So I repeat the process with her, except that she does not give me the luxury of those few calm few minutes to prep her bottle. Claire prefers to scream in my ear as I hold and bounce her. Ah, my little princess. She is, however, a faster eater than her brother. Now I am faced with the decision of staying up or going back to bed only to be rudely awoken by the alarm. I choose a few minutes sleep, and it is wonderful, until the dreaded alarm.

6:15 a.m.
The alarm goes off and now my day has “officially” started. Did I mention there is also a toddler in the mix? Grey is 2 ½. He’s a great sleeper, but can be a bit cranky in the mornings. I jump out of bed, shower and it’s a mad dash with my wife to get the kids dressed and out the door. Did I mention we are in a two-bedroom apartment in the city? We are finally coming to terms with it being time to move to the suburbs. My toddler goes to one child care center while the babies attend another, so my wife wheels Grey one way and I head in the opposite direction with the twins.

7:15 a.m.
Just getting the twins into the car is an adventure as three car seats do not fit easily in our SUV, so every morning is a bit of a wrestling match. We continue to fight the obvious solution…a mini-van. But, more on that another time.

7:30 a.m. (Yes, my morning commute is great!)
I won’t go through the details of getting the twins out of the car and into the center, putting away bottles, and storing the stroller and car seats. Even though I seem to forget one of those steps every day, I have yet to forget the actual bottles – but we all know that day is coming. It’s comforting to know that Target is right down the road from work.

Now in my office, I can get coffee and start the work day. It’s 8:00 a.m. and I’ve got to run to my first meeting!

I’m a working dad of a toddler and infant twins. I’ll be sharing my adventures as I attempt to navigate the challenges of working full-time, parenting three children under age three, house-hunting, moving…and finding time to sleep.

One comment

MediaMom May 9, 2013 at 2:24 pm

Welcome to the blog, Andy! You are a constant reminder that I have nothing to complain about, with two singletons born four years apart. Of course, I have met your twins, and they also give me lots to be jealous about.